HOW ISLAM TRANSFORMED ENGLAND Written by | by Nauman Hadi, Missionary UK
Plight of England before the 16th Century Have you ever wondered how London got those fascinating colossal buildings, architectural masterpieces which remind you of the days of Rome? It’s strange when we come to think how a city which was congested with poorly built houses laden with disease and poor sanitation, but the centre of which were just a few Gothic buildings not only became a thing of architectural awe but boasted the administrative machinery of an empire behind those walls. England was the hub of religious intolerance during the medieval era, plagued with superstitious belief which heavily influenced its laws. As for intellectual advancement it too followed the footsteps of the Church in declaring the Scripture as the only path that one needed to explore. By the 16th century England
was not special in any way. It was a small island compared to others isolated on its own compared to the Catholic empires of France and Italy. So how does an empire arise from nothing? The answer is Islam. Islam was responsible for the amazing transformation that turned a country slowly being devoured by its enemies; both internal and external, to an economic, cultural and social hub of the known world. And it all took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. As this article aims to compare two periods of time in order to determine the grandeur of the pivotal force- Islam, it is befitting that we examine what England was actually like before the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in detail. It is quite difficult to sum up the progress of a nation which took hundreds of years and saw countless pivotal moments in just a few paragraphs.
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